The invention applies to all branches of industry whose production cycles include phases that make it necessary to transport via conveyor pipes substances in the plastic state which exhibit a high coefficient of sliding and/or internal friction under said conditions.
2. Description of Related Art
In the present state of the art, some devices are known which, in order to facilitate transport as mentioned above via the above-mentioned pipes in their final leg before reaching the discharge nozzle and through the above-mentioned nozzle, use sonotrodes or similar devices to induce vibrations in order to take advantage of any thixotropic behavior that may exist in the substance that is being transported, transmitting high-frequency vibrations directly to said substance.
This case is illustrated in, e.g., patent application DE 06645 Al, in which the substance is a ceramic in the liquid state.
The problems that are not solved by these types of devices are mainly the following: first, because the temperature of most molten substances is very high, the sonotrode is quickly worn down since cavitation phenomena in its molecular structure are aggravated and accelerated.
Second, in the segments of pipe that are further away from the discharge nozzle, such devices do not help to reduce the resistance of the substances to flowing along the pipe itself, and the concept of using more sonotrodes that penetrate into the substance after going through the walls of the pipe involves complications that make this approach impractical from both the engineering and economic standpoints.
It should be pointed out that this type of problem exists in many marketing sectors, including very different ones.
For example, in preparing portions of butter for packaging in the "continuous" mode, the method used is to heat the surface of the mass of the butter flowing inside the pipes in order to reduce the coefficient of friction, but raising the temperature in this way obviously does nothing to improve the organoleptic and microbiological properties of the product.
Another case where a high coefficient of friction turns out to be an insurmountable obstacle is that of the molding of plastics having optimal physical and mechanical characteristics that make it advantageous to use them in large-scale industrial production.
Such substances, which would first be melted and then injected into molds, cannot be used because it is virtually impossible, or at least too complicated and expensive, to make them flow, even in the plastic state after they are melted, via the pipes that carry them to the exit hole that would cast them into the above-mentioned mold.
There are quite a number of these substances, but the following examples can be cited: PFTE (polytetrafluoroethylene) and polyimide (PI) molding compounds.
Another case where a reduction in the coefficient of sliding and/or internal friction could lead to a considerable reduction in production cost and an improvement in the quality of the product is the production of optical fibers: today friction and the internal viscosity of the molten glass cause wear on the drawing mills which exert considerable traction on the individual fibers; this causes a decline in the homogeneity and isotropy of the resulting reflective surfaces, resulting in greater photon dispersion and rapid drops in the power of the signal being transmitted.